


Small Spaces

by strangepromises (juliet)



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:49:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5462258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliet/pseuds/strangepromises
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Well, that's just fine then. No one's trying to kill us. They've just stunned us and locked us up who-knows-where, in the hope of kidnapping me and drugging me into making a play for the Imperium."</p><p>Ivan really hates small spaces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Spaces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meh_guh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meh_guh/gifts).



> Profuse thanks to my betas, karanguni for thoughtful plot and characterisation help, and in-house cheerleader doop for "yes it's fine" reassurance. 
> 
> Canon/timing note: this takes place somewhere between A Civil Campaign and Captain Vorpatril's Alliance.

The Vorkalloner's ballroom was glittering and busy, full of what Aunt Cordelia had once wryly dubbed 'the Vor at play', and, pleasingly, entirely lacking in Lady Alys Vorpatril. Or, come to that, Lady Cordelia Vorkosigan herself, who was perfectly capable of inducing her very own brand of discomfort in Ivan, even if it was an entirely different brand from his mother's. 

"Why hello, Ivan," came a voice from behind him, and he swung around to see Byerly Vorrutyer, in full town clown getup, holding a glass of wine.

"Oh, it's you," Ivan said.

By rolled his eyes. "Delightful to see you too. And how are you this fine evening?"

"On leave," Ivan said with satisfaction. Only for a couple of days, but still.

"Are you escorting anyone tonight?"

Ivan shrugged. "Just thought I'd come out myself. See the sights a little, enjoy the start of my leave." Also, there'd been a message from his mother asking if he was free to join her and Illyan for dinner, which led him to hurriedly dig out this party out as a previous engagement. Well, a previous invitation, anyway; if you hadn't actually gotten around to replying to it, it probably wasn't, technically, an engagement. 

"Turned down again?" By smirked. "Well, do let me know if you're short of company."

"I am perfectly capable of finding company of any sort I desire," Ivan said with dignity. "If I wanted it. Which I don't. Anyway. I don't see you dancing attendance on anyone in particular."

"I'm busy enough," By said, an thoughtful look in his eye. 

Ivan concluded that By had his mind on something for his other, unofficial, job, and decided to remove himself from the immediate area as rapidly as possible. 

The rest of the evening was a mixed success. By midnight, he was propping up the wall, a glass of admittedly very good wine in his hand, and seriously considering the merits of calling it a night. 

Which, of course, was when By reappeared. 

"Oh good, Ivan," he said, in a tone that on anyone else would have been breathless. By still managed to pull off insouciant. 

"No," Ivan said automatically. "Not good. Not Ivan. Going home right now." He knocked back the rest of the wine.

By grimaced. "It won't take long, I promise. Perfectly safe. I just... It would really speed things up a bit, if... "

"No," Ivan said, firmly. "I am going home."

He marched briskly away from Byerly, towards the cloakroom and the exit, and it was really quite unbelievably bad luck that a couple of very large goons with stunners jumped him from behind a pillar on the way. 

*****

Ivan awoke with a stinking headache. It was, he reflected, a sad indictment on his life that he was so intimately familiar with stunner hangover. In the line of duty, that might have been fair enough; the trouble was, ninety percent of his experiences with stunners (on either end) had been -- well, in the line of duty, perhaps, but not the duty for which he was actually paid. The sort of duty that Miles dragged him into. And now, apparently, Byerly too. It was too much of a stretch for even his slightly foggy head to suppose that whatever By had been about to suggest was totally unrelated to the whole goons-with-stunners situation. 

He opened his eyes, and looked up at the underside of a chin, which turned out to be attached to Byerly's face.

"Oh, you're awake. Good."

Lap. His head was on Byerly's lap. It was -- surprisingly nice. Ivan sat up hurriedly, then groaned. 

"No kind of first aid kit, I'm afraid," By said. "If your head is anything like mine, I feel I should apologise for dragging you into this."

Ivan looked around, blinking. There wasn't much around to look. Small, dark, rough stone walls, lit only by a single dim bulb hanging from the ceiling. How nice.

"You should indeed apologise," he said through his teeth. "Where are we?"

"Well," Byerly said. "I'm, um, not entirely sure. But I'm fairly certain we're still somewhere in the Vorkalloners' place. Given the dark and general lack of decorative touches, I'm guessing somewhere in the cellar." 

"Small spaces. Small, dark, enclosed spaces. Perfect." Ivan took a deep breath and told himself firmly that this was nothing like that, that there was plenty of air, no need to panic at all. Someone would surely track them down very soon now. ImpSec, for example, earning their damn pay for once.

By peered at him. "Ivan? Are you alright?"

"Fine," Ivan said. "Just absolutely fine."

By squinted at him for a moment. "Oh. Claustrophobia?"

"I do not," Ivan said, "have claustrophobia. A phobia is an irrational fear. I have a perfectly rational fear of people locking me into places and trying to kill me."

"No one's trying to kill us, if that helps," By said. "Well. It seems highly unlikely, anyway."

"What happened, By?"

Byerly sighed. "You know how you said you didn't want to be roped into whatever I was up to?"

"Yes, I do remember that perfectly," Ivan agreed with false cordiality.

"Well. _My_ plan was simply to co-opt you for a little chat with my, ahem, erstwhile colleagues," 'the people I was spying on', Ivan interpreted, "telling them that you were interested in hearing what they had to say, with the hope that they would get sufficiently enthusiastic to incriminate themselves to someone other than me. Like I said. Perfectly safe. Unfortunately, some enthusiast, while I was off looking for you, took this a little further and thought that a more robust approach would be better."

Ivan scowled. "What did they want -- actually, no, don't bother to answer that." 

In his experience there were no good answers to that question. Truly, Ivan hated politics. He'd been hoping that Gregor's marriage would've prevented him from landing in these kinds of situations by now. Then again -- to a certain sort of mind, now was perhaps the last plausible moment for any challenges to the succession, before Gregor and Laisa cooked up a bunch more little Gregors-and-Laisas. Maybe he should just lock himself in ImpSec until they yanked the first one out of the uterine replicator.

By grimaced. "The good news is, assuming they're paying any kind of attention, ImpSec should be rounding everyone up right now. So we just need to sit tight and wait for them to find us."

Ivan considered this. "Why are we in here, though? Why are you in here with me?"

"When I realised they'd nabbed you, I thought it might work out fine."

"Other than the whole 'me being stunned' part," Ivan pointed out.

"Which wasn't my _fault_ ," By said. "I thought, firstly, if they tried to convince you of the justice of their cause when you came round, well, that would be more than sufficiently incriminating." By rolled his eyes. "They did have an excessively high opinion of how convincing their argument was. Hence my original idea. And secondly, surely someone would notice your absence soon enough. Since they hadn't expected you to be here, they hadn't thought that part through all that well. So it was a time-limited situation with minimal risk and possible significant gain, if I just sat tight and waited."

"ImpSec. Bloody weasels," Ivan muttered.

"Unfortunately," By continued, "some bright spark came up with an idea that might actually have worked, for getting you out without anyone noticing. Which could have led to -- a rather different situation, possibly."

Ivan had read enough field reports in his day to have a clear idea of what might be possible, with time and privacy, to forcibly change someone's mind. He repressed a shudder. 

"So anyway," By said. "Best I could think of in the moment was to suddenly and noisily lose my nerve about the whole business, in the hope of attracting some attention. And I got stunned too." He squinted at Ivan. "A bit more lightly than you, I presume. Since we're in here and not in a lightflyer on our way somewhere, I'm assuming that I did, in fact, attract some attention, and they've shoved us down here in a hurry in the hope of retrieving us. Or retrieving you, anyway." He grimaced. "I have no idea what this is going to do to my cover. I suppose I'll have to get Allegre to arrest me again. Dammit. If you'd agreed, Ivan..." 

Ivan duly ignored this as a quite understandable attempt on Byerly's part to reassign blame. "Well, that's just fine then. No one's trying to kill us. They've just stunned us and locked us up who-knows-where, in the hope of kidnapping me and drugging me into making a play for the Imperium. A plan which you have known about, from the sound of things, for quite some time, without bothering to mention it even when you saw me tonight." 

By twitched, having obviously hoped that Ivan had overlooked that implication. "Need to know?" he muttered, without conviction.

"Marvellous." Ivan sighed. "You know, this was supposed to be my night off. They might at least have locked us in a bigger cellar."

By looked over at him, head tilted. 

"Small spaces... Would it be something to do with Miles?"

Ivan laughed, hollowly. "Isn't it always?" He sighed. "It was when I was stationed on Earth. When the clone thing -- when Miles first found out about the clone thing."

"Ah yes, the, um, fascinating Mark," By said.

Ivan told the story as briefly as possible. It wasn't something he really wanted to dwell on, right at this precise moment.

"There's no water here," By said, after a moment.

"And you have no idea how grateful I am for that right now," Ivan growled. "Now, how about we talk about something else?" 

There was a pause. 

"I'm scared of spiders," Byerly offered, staring off away from Ivan. He laughed. "Stupid, I know. Scream like a girl at the sight of one."

Ivan forbore to pass further comment.

Time passed. Byerly didn't have a first aid kit, but he did have, slightly bizarrely, a pack of canasta cards. Ivan lost to him three times in a row.

"This was supposed to be a nice peaceful pleasant social evening," Ivan said bitterly, after the last loss. "Even m'mother wasn't harassing me."

By's eyes sharpened. "Your mother. When will she miss you?"

Ivan sank his head into his hands. "I have my own flat, remember, Byerly? Since I was about twenty. You've been there. More than once. Mother won't notice anything amiss until, maybe, day after tomorrow. Possibly later."

By scowled. "Ops?"

Ivan didn't look up. "Told you. I'm on leave. Two days off."

"Ah. Damn." By sat back.

"I thought you were convinced that ImpSec would be looking for us." Ivan said. 

"They are. I'm sure they are." 

"Have you ever considered cultivating someone who might notice if you go missing?" Ivan asked grumpily.

He regretted it as he glanced up and saw By's face in the dim light. 

"If one of those high Vor buds you've been avoiding all these years were prepared to take up with -- what is it you've called me, Ivan? A 'town clown with no visible means of support'," By said after a moment, "I must say it's news to me."

"No high Vor buds left for any of us now," Ivan pointed out. "That damned gender imbalance." He squinted at By, and dared, after a moment, "Not that I've always been certain that you, um, don't..."

"Don't prefer boys instead?" By supplied. "Not _instead_ , no." He tipped his head thoughtfully to one side. "As _well_ as, now..." He glanced sideways under his lashes at Ivan. 

The jolt in Ivan's stomach took him by surprise. Sure, he'd always known that he could, if the need took him... helping another chap out, that sort of thing; he knew the theory. But equally he'd always known that really, it was girls he was interested in. He'd certainly never have thought of By, well... like that. But right now -- and god knew why, it wasn't like he hadn't had strong suspicions about By's inclinations before now -- now he was thinking of it. It wouldn't be the soft armful that he usually went for in his bedmates. By was solid muscle under that indolent exterior. 

He hoped like hell that By couldn't see his blush in this light, and sought, without immediate success, for a change of subject. 

The ceiling light flickered, flicked off for a second and back on again, then died with finality.

Ivan concentrated on his breathing. In, and out. Nice and slow. That was the ticket. Nice dry cupboard here, perfectly safe, nothing to worry about. Just... very... very... dark. No light at all. Right.

"Ivan?" Byerly sounded a very long way away. Couldn't be that far. Place wasn't that big. Small, and dark. "Ivan? Are you..."

"'M fine," Ivan said, firmly. At least, he was going for firmly. 

"Ivan?" 

It sounded like By was edging closer. Couldn't have been that far away in the first place, mind. Small place, cellar or whatever it was. Ivan felt a shoulder nudge against his, and his pulse steadied a little. He could feel By's solid warmth even through both of their layers of formal tunic and jacket and all the rest. It was reassuring, that little point of contact. More reassuring than Ivan would have expected. By shifted slightly, his shoulder muscles tensing, and Ivan's mind flickered from no-I-am-not-panicking to an awareness, nearly as bad, of the fact that By was very near. Really very near indeed. 

"They'll come and get us soon," By said, sounding worried. "Ivan, are you sure you're alright? I mean, I don't like to draw attention to it, but your breathing sounds a little odd. Don't want you passing out on me, you know?"

Ivan, faced with the prospect of simultaneously denying both his very real no-it's-not-claustrophobia, and a collection of feelings about By-of-all-people which could not possibly be real, found his brain had dried up altogether. He didn't say anything at all. 

"Ivan, you're rather worrying me."

Ivan felt By turn towards him slightly in the darkness, and put his hand on Ivan's leg. His brain was moderately sure that By meant that to be reassuring and brotherly, or distant-cousin-ly or something of that sort. His nervous system wasn't listening to his brain. By's hand on his leg _tingled_. Ivan's breath hitched. 

He could have sworn he could feel By's frown deepen; then, a moment later, By's hand slid very slightly further up his leg, and Ivan swallowed. 

" _Oh_ ," By breathed, and Ivan felt By's weight shift again, felt By lean slowly in towards him. Tentatively, gently, By kissed him.

Ivan kissed back. The kiss deepened for a heart-racing moment, then By pulled back slightly, tilted his head so their foreheads rested together.

"Why Ivan," he breathed, the light tone underlaid with something urgent, "I never knew you cared." 

"Shut up, By," Ivan growled. His uniform tunic felt unbearably warm. His hand had found its way up to By's back, and he curled his fingertips into the smooth fabric of By's jacket. By swayed a little towards him.

"Ivan," he sounded more serious now, and tentative, "are you... I don't want to..."

"I've a good two inches and a fair few pounds on you," Ivan pointed out. "I don't think you could take advantage of me if you tried."

Part of his brain was arguing very loudly that this was all irrelevant and they needed to get back to the kissing, as soon as possible. Another part noted that By did have a point; where had this come from, all of a sudden? A third part was comparing By to the parade of girls that Ivan had spent an enjoyable time with -- not as long a parade as some people seemed to think, but he'd hardly been celibate all these years -- and... finding that the girls all came up short against... By?

This was all far too complicated to think about. What he knew, right now, was that he very badly wanted to kiss By again, and perhaps a bit more than kiss, and By, his moral concerns aside, seemed to be willing.

"There's more than one way of taking advantage..." By was beginning to argue.

"Shut _up_ , By." Ivan pulled By towards him again, harder this time.

"...oh god." Ivan could feel the moment where By stopped resisting, and kissed him, his body pressing into Ivan's, that boneless slouch Ivan had seen before feeling suddenly _deliberate_ , as if By wanted as much contact between them as possible.

Which suited Ivan just fine. 

The dark meant he couldn't see, only feel. His hand found the join between By's shirt and trousers and nudged upwards. By's skin was hot and smooth against his fingers. By arched slightly against Ivan, and his mouth left Ivan's, scraping his teeth along the stubble on Ivan's jawline then licking at the spot under his ear. Ivan shuddered, and By made a satisfied noise against his neck and did it again. Ivan ran his hands over the lean muscles of By's back, then, curious, followed the line of By's ribs round to his front, and up to find his nipples. By jerked and swore. Ha. Those worked the same, then. Ivan applied himself to further investigation.

He didn't know how long it had been when they pulled slightly apart. The darkness was still absolute. Their foreheads were resting together again, and their breathing was loud in the quiet room. Ivan opened his mouth to say -- what? He scrabbled for thought, his brain whirling. 

There was a loud bang on the door. "Lord Ivan?" 

By hesitated for a fractional moment, then leaned away, took his hands off Ivan. "In here!"

Ivan felt a dizzying rush of wrenching loss; mixed with equally dizzying relief that they'd been found. He heard By wrestling his clothes into a semblance of order, and hurried to do the same. He kept thinking he should say something, quickly, now; but he still couldn't find the words; and By wasn't saying anything either. 

Then the door splintered, and he could see again, and the moment was lost. 

After that it was the expected circus: By simultaneously doing his best 'accidentally dragged into something inexplicable' baffled looks whilst Allegre was visibly itching to debrief him; medics checking over both of them; and ImpSec everywhere muttering into wristcoms. 

Whatever Ivan said would almost certainly tread on By's cover, so he returned to 'stunner hangover mixed with alcohol' state and blinked blearily and pitifully at anyone who tried to ask him anything. Allegre would want the whole thing, in private, in due course anyway. (And possibly Gregor too. Now that was an interview to look forward to.) 

Not the whole thing. A large part of what had just happened was no one's business but their own. Ivan swallowed, and glanced over at By, who was just standing up again, evidently preparatory to being marched off by two of Allegre's lot. By looked over and met his eyes, but Ivan couldn't read anything in them at all. The real By had disappeared again, swallowed up by dissolute-and-irresponsible-By. Something clenched in Ivan's chest.

"Catch you later," By said, with half a smile.

"Yeah," Ivan said. "Later. Hope you don't get too hard of a time." 

By waved over his shoulder, and Ivan watched him slouch off down the passageway towards the cellar stairs, an ImpSec guard on each side.

Ivan still didn't know what he had been going to say, before. He swallowed against something unnamed that rose in his throat. It was probably for the best, right? Just -- one of those weird things. 

He swallowed, and picked himself up, and submitted to Allegre's insistence that he allow ImpSec to drive him home. 

Just one of those things. Yeah.


End file.
